The story behind a loaf of bread

HISTORY OF BREAD

Botham's
Educational
Pages

Bread, in one form or another, has been one of the principal forms of
food for man from earliest times.

The trade of the baker, then, is one of the oldest crafts in the world.
Loaves and rolls have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs. In the British
Museum's Egyptian galleries you can see actual loaves which were made
and baked over 5,000 years ago. Also on display are grains of wheat which
ripened in those ancient summers under the Pharaohs. Wheat has been found
in pits where human settlements flourished 8,000 years ago. Bread, both
leavened and unleavened, is mentioned in the Bible many times. The ancient
Greeks and Romans knew bread for a staple food even in those days people
argued whether white or brown bread was best.

Further back, in the Stone Age, people made solid cakes from stone-crushed
barley and wheat. A millstone used for grinding corn has been found, that
is thought to be 7,500 years old. The ability to sow and reap cereals
may be one of the chief causes which led man to dwell in communities,
rather than to live a wandering life hunting and herding cattle.

According to botanists, wheat, oats, barley and other grains belong to
the order of Grasses; nobody has yet found the wild form of grass from which
wheat, as we know it, has developed. Like most of the wild grasses, cereal
blossoms bear both male and female elements. The young plants are provided
with a store of food to ensure their support during the period of germination,
and it is in this store of reserve substance that man finds an abundant
supply of food.